Did childhood abuse shape my sexuality? An Update.

As I add more stories and bits to my Patreon and wade through the history of my thoughts- my bitter, envious, ageist, ablelist, fat-shaming, misogynistic, heteronormative thoughts- and realize that this was all present at or before I became an official adult, I came to terms with when all my ideas arose, where they came from, what they morphed into.

Especially as I come across words and ideas I wouldn’t be caught dead formalizing into stories. Like, how could I have ever thought like that? How did I change for the better?

Now I remember certain conversations with family and friends that were backed by things that I read here and there, and how that helped me get to where I am. Like fat-shaming. I remember arguing with my brother, I’m paraphrasing, that ‘morbidly obese’ people didn’t need to be protected from fat shaming.

“What do you mean, morbidly?”

“As in they are killing themselves with being fat?”

“Other people kill themselves- slowly- in different ways. Like smoking. Do you smoke-shame people?”

He attacked the root of the problem- and it’s not like I got it then and there. Then and there I still believed he was dumb and that we needed for people to know that being fat is bad.

Fucking stupid, I know.

So fast forward to a (hopefully) more knowledgeable and compassionate me who’s posting fantasy BDSM porn between intersex individuals.

Absolutely no part of that formulated in the last eleven years that is my adulthood. I can trace my most initial ideas way back to kindergarten, where I often imagined my dolls, the plastic-y ones like Barbie, being beaten by monsters. Like, that’s what I tried to think of before going to sleep, hoping I would dream it. Or thinking of swimming my entire body among hot oatmeal. Or going through the heightened mode of experience which happened when I was about to get a spanking.

Now, before you think about a five-year-old’s sado-masochistic daydreams, I want to tell you that I had absolutely no sexual innuendos with these thoughts. Even if many of the characters in my head were naked, it was just easier to have them naked rather than everyone taking off their clothes. That definitely came later.

As might be apparent by the last example of me getting into the proper headspace to be beaten, perhaps these imaginings were the product of physical abuse. My mind tried to cope and it did it a wee bit too well, until I got to this point. But I never imagined it was my parents doing the beatings- At this, I would get too angry or sad, and that wasn’t fun bedtime material.

Then I watched porn for the first time. I think it was 3rd grade? 4th? There was a ‘red tape’ that I watched in Louisiana with my cousins, and a ‘blank tape’ that I watched with my siblings. Someone had stolen the red tape, but I remember the ‘blank tape’ enough to remember that I didn’t just watch it. There were, in particular, two scenes. The red tape had a scene way at the end that I liked, and the blank tape had a scene somewhat in the middle.

The main differences between these scenes and the others that I didn’t like is that they talked. The kind of humiliating talk you often hear in porn. The type of humiliating talk when an abusive person is feeling particularly vicious verbally, without all the sex stuff.

Once they stopped talking and continued the sex in earnest, I would turn off the video and go to bed, hoping to dream.

As time went on, I got less spankings and more yelled at, more humiliated, and with that, the inner stories voiced themselves. At this time, I was reading like a fiend, mostly fantasy, but also a bit of history, and whatever book the librarian or reading teacher said I should read. For example, “My Brother Sam Is Dead”. It had one of those stickers that often portended a really good book, but I didn’t like the title, and eventually the library assistant said I should read it.

I cried.

And people died in my inner stories.

And then I watched the 90s ‘movie’ called Ai no Kusabi.

This young man called a mongrel who lived in the slums of a city in the far future is kidnapped by the most elite of the elite and forced to provide for him sexually. Although, at the beginning, blond dude saved the mongrel’s life, and he really didn’t want to owe anything to an Elite, and was like, “Fuck me, and we’re even”. Blond guy kinda liked it too much.

It encapsulated all my desires at the moment. Sexual tension and humiliation, a sci-fi fantasy background, a relatable plot, and characters who I knew weren’t ever going to find happiness.

It was around this time that I realized I only liked porn between women, but everything else was fair game. I don’t have a clue why. It’s pretty much the same now. If the woman isn’t enjoying herself, I find little point to watching it- although I don’t feel the same if there is a man in the scene. However, if it’s a scene between gay men, they both must obviously enjoy it. But it’s hard to find anything I like.

Like above… After this, it was mostly content that changed. I added a few fetishes like vore and vampirism to my list, stopped using ‘fat’ as a character trait, and realized how much I wanted neurodivergent characters to get the front seat. These were more expansions of creativity rather than base instincts.

It’s not like my parents were, in my childhood, supportive in much of any of my creative interests. But I didn’t do it to spite them either. They came naturally.

But how much of it was truly nature? One of my earliest memories is throwing up in my car-seat and my dad reaching back to smack me. He kept saying not to puke. I don’t think I have the whole story there, but it’s just to put into perspective how not clear-cut everything is.

It doesn’t help that my siblings each have a bit of everything that I have, although not the whole package. Then again, they have eccentric things that they do that I don’t.

Who cares?!?!?!?!?!

Yea. What is the point of all this? It doesn’t change anything.

Still, when I think that I’m writing out my childhood trauma and everything that I am stems from being beat and humiliated and traumatized- unhappy as a kid, it makes everything feel so… fake. As if… If the whole world was perfect, if no one suffered, no one would have these thoughts. I would not be me.

But then I think. That would have been nature too. A non-traumatized life can only be made by a life without trauma- haha, like, duh, but what I mean is, effects are made by what happened. There is nothing inherently ‘special’ of having a good childhood-only that it’s good. There is also nothing inherently ‘special’ of having a bad childhood- only that it’s bad. They are both formulated on equal grounds by equal means. We just like them differently. As long as it ends well, who cares where the influence comes from?

It’s ended well, I think.

Bible, Day 24, Back to ridiculousness 1/2

So ol’ Wordyprez let me know that it’s been at least a month since the last time I’ve updated my blog site. And I usually slack off on social media if I’m having fun elsewhere, and that fun’s being had through chats and video games and wonderful family and people. So life is puuuurty  nice right now- even got an interview with a job I really really really really want.

But I was enjoying my little Bible studies, yes yes, and I was ultra excited when I got another specially made Bible from one of my sister’s friend’s mother. This lovely lady is just like my mom when it comes to religion- or, really, Christianity. What I call cloyingly religious. Like the phrase ‘cloyingly sweet’, no matter the situation or what part of the dessert you’re eating, religion makes its way in with all the delicacy as a waterfall of syrup.

It’s Jesus!

And that experience reminded me on why I had to pull no punches whatsoever with my atheism, because many times, no one else does. On top o’ dat, she knew I didn’t go to church and I bet she knew it was because I didn’t believe in any religions or gods. She repeatedly said that I should ‘try out God’ and ‘try out church’ and ‘remember God is in all things’ and was talking about how people are punished by God all the time, and I felt so damn disrespected.

Lemme tell you about one of the people that God punished in her life. I told her that I don’t deal with my mom very much because she’s not a good person right now but ain’t no one call tell her nothing- and it’s always been this way and I’ve only really just grasped it this year. Well Friend’s Mom starts talking about how this one woman in her life did very wrongly by her parents- said bad stuff, put ’em in a nursing home, treated them very wrong. Then she got cancer and died very quickly. She was in her early sixties. And while that seems like an everyday thing, that showed Friend’s Mom to always respect her parents. Lemme tell you, goddamnit, nothing sparks my fury faster than fucking gaslighting me (I get dreams- I guess nightmares?- about gaslighting nearly every day). It shows how you don’t know about me, or my life, or my effin’ parents. People automatically assume I’m being ungrateful or misunderstanding my parents or something. I think it’s because I’m a cool cat or something so my parents MUST be the ones to thank.

So I  might’ve been a bit biased on Friend’s Mom experience with Cancer Friend. But then! My sister told how she was going to visit an internet friend (went well by the way, everyone was who they said they were, sister had a fantastic time), and Friend’s Mom told us about another friend who met a man and it turned out he was evil and a pervert and they married and divorced within a month. Why was the man evil and a pervert? Because he watched porn.

I nearly asked, “What kind of porn?” But I had a feeling that that wasn’t the point. Now I know there are some feminists out there who find all porn to be the work of spoiled men who wanted to be sexually fulfilled at any moment and that pornography preyed on young women who needed money and a job- but I didn’t think that Friend’s Mom was that kind of anti-porn artist. My sister sent a still of above to my phone.

When we almost separated (I missed my bus the first go ’round, but we caught up with it- an hour early actually), Friend’s Mom gave me the Amplified Bible (ABZ) by Zondervan. ABZ uses extremely simplified translations that are more prose than Hebrew poetry. It has introductions and outlines and explanations in parenthesis and so I believe it’s addition will render my analyses more complete. Just to remind you, the other Bible I’m using is the New International Version One Year Chronological (NIVC). This foreword was a little longer than I expected, but I suppose that is to be expected after not writing for a while!

Bible, Day 20, The wife turns into a pillar of salt! Like, can we talk about this?!

Genesis 19:1-21:34

Summary: Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot and his daughters, Isaac is born

I just want to start this off by saying that this probably didn’t happen. I’m prolly preaching to the choir here, but it has to be said. I’m sure there have been worse cities sprouted since Sodom and Gomorrah, and yet none of them have tasted the burning sulfur. A good many people take such extreme acts of god as ‘metaphors’. And what I enjoy bringing up is if these great acts of Mr. Lordy Lord never happened, what does he actually do? When do the metaphors became literal occasions? And what do these stories really mean? We all know that Sodom and Gomorrah wasn’t really about homosexuality, but hospitality and thereforerage it is WAY better to have Lot’s daughters get raped by a whole bunch of men than two male guests getting raped by a whole bunch of men. :l

14 – So the sons-in-law thought he was joking? Didn’t think to shine some magic on them or show them all the guys who were blinded? I like how they get like a few words and then people just move on.

22 – “but flee there quickly, because I cannot do anything until you reach it.”- Everybody look here! “I CANNOT DO ANYTHING UNTIL YOU REACH IT” Oh yes, I’m taking this super literally, there’s absolutely no reason not to. God couldn’t somehow go around Lot and the good people? And again, it’s about Mr. Lordy Lord REMEMBERING Lot. Do the gods forget? Like, I really need to know.

26 – So she turns into a pillar of salt. Why even make looking  back punishment? If I was Lot’s No-Name Wife, and I get to heaven or hell and I get told I died when I looked back and I became a pillar of salt? If this motherfucker don’t get out of here! And why salt? Do y’all know just how valuable salt was? There’s no rhyme or reason to these things, but most likely the Hebrew goatmen that told these stories thought their Hebrew audiences would get everything.

37-38 – STFU, these girls raped their father, they got pregnant, and Papa was like whatevs? This is further ammunition for the goatmen, no one today would think this was okay- well, people with sense. But to goatmen (I’m assuming) preservation of the line was all-important. “Moabites” and “Ammonites” of today? Well, this puts the timeline down pretty good, doesn’t it? I know somewhere in my ancestry there were some guys made by incest, but I don’t want to know where or when!

20:17  – Slave girls. What a pleasant world.

21 – The lady has a name! Her name is Hagar and God helped with the baby name Ishmael and Hagar GOT HIM a wife in Egypt. Got him one. Like a sheep.

There are descendants listed from Genesis 25:12-18 and 1 Chronicles 1:28-31, because that stuff is important to goatmen

I forgot about the rating system, but when I finish writing about the reading for the day, I don’t really want to return to it. I’m a bad blogger.

Bible, Day 15, and Killing me none too softly

Job 35:1-37:24

12 – “He does not answer when men cry out because of the arrogance of the wicked.” And before, like, we’re maggots so why should he care that we want answers from him? Again, what others have said before, and it’s not a very good argument. And he says that wickedness and righteousness doesn’t affect anyone but man- so what use is man to god? And why does unending torment meet those who do not prostrate themselves to god? We literally have no effect on him and god just wants his pride stroked? What is the purpose of all this?

36:2  “Bear with me a little longer and I will show you that there is more to e said in God’s behalf.” *cough*on*cough*… Ok, I’ll wait.

37:14-18 – Gotta get to this. So it’s pretty obvious that Elihu (and most likely others from this time) believes that God controls the weather- especially storms and lightning (sounds aaaaaawfully famiilar). But we know that a complicated system is in charge of all that, and people who know how science works see how accurate our weather forecasting can be. Actually, anything that many people blame as gods’ works can be explained pretty well without magical sky pixies of varying dimensions.

And I’m REALLY sick of, god is so huge and and amazing and we’ll NEVER understand him, so suffer through your fate and be happy.

What I do like about this chapter gets pretty well summed up here 36:17-19 – Pretty much, if everything went well for Job constantly, what if he was tempted to sin and falls to the wayside because things have been going so well? With being treated how he is (“with the judgment due the wicked”), he  knows what happens to wicked people, and he wouldn’t be so tempted once things go well for him again.

That’s a nice argument, and if all men who were thrust into such a state and ended up righteous when their trials were over then it would even be proven correct. But this is similar to the Death Parade dilemma:

You see, in Death Parade, nonhuman beings called Arbiters judged human souls for either The Void (I guess it’s purgatory or something) or reincarnation. For some reason, it wasn’t enough that human beings have lived full lives before going to the testing grounds where the Arbiters worked, and so the Arbiters had to put the souls of humans through Death Games, judge their reactions and choices, and then decide.

The problem with that (explained pretty phenomenally towards the end), is that the Death Games (which usually pit two souls against each other in a game that would end one or the other’s lives- btw, the souls usually don’t know they’re already dead), may not have been accurate depictions of human souls. I agree.

Like, so many people say, the ‘real’ you comes out when your drink or smoke, or when your life is on the line. Or when all your fortune goes to shit and you’ve got leprosy out the ass and all your people have condemned you. How is this part more ‘real’ than when you’re sober is beyond me. Yes, you can hide feelings and thoughts you don’t want to share if everything is going right. But hiding feelings and thoughts is part of being human, to get along with others, to make society greater and safer. If everyone acted how the ‘really’ wanted to act, it would be chaos, and if we decide to give up our freedom so that the world can be less chaotic, that is as real as any comments spoken aloud in a bar.

Back to the verse, if you’re going to go through bad times anyway so that you don’t take your good times for granted, then there is no need to be good all the time. As many people complain, if you accept god on your deathbed even after killing people and doing awful things, god would forgive you, won’t he?

 

What if all killers (mass or otherwise) were like Malcom X 0.5? or Brock Turner?

I wrote this the day after the mass killing in Orlando’s Latin LGBTQ nightclub, but I didn’t want to share it until later, when everything comes to light- or as much as the media allows before people with human decency fills out the rest of the ‘terrorist attack’ schtick that so many news outlets are peddling.

My dear sister, who has a warm outlook of the world- so warm that she says things that I would never think to say, one of which was this: I so wish people would stop calling it a terrorist attack based on his religion rather than the fact that it’s a terrorist attack because it’s an act of terror. 😒

Which is the main reason people want to add more facts around this horrific crime against humanity. Terrorist attack and Islam is not mutually inclusive all the time- except in America. Probably, unless you’re black and/or Muslim. I give no leeway to any religion that somehow prompts a person to do something horrible. Sure, without religion, people can find the reason to do bad things (Brock Turner comes to mind- goddamn can you find a sleazier couple of words? If someone was introducing you to a Brock Turner, most of y’all will be ready to meet a complete asshole, admit it).

But I know for damn sure it’s easier to do a lot of bad things if you feel that some god is telling you to do it. Just like for some people, their ‘reliance’ on their faith keeps them from doing bad things- which is equally as terrifying as the other way around.

Yet, we all know that without religion, or any other catalyst one can make their crutch, the mind, influenced by genes and the environment and the words that float in and around, the television, the experiences within and without, can one day make a person think something that isn’t ok, is ok. Or ok enough.

I’ve already made this clear to my brother (again, this was the afternoon after the shooting in Orlando, before I even knew about it), but I met an absolute lunatic yesterday (June 11). When I had seen him around campus, I thought he was extremely fit and handsome, and since I was caught staring 89% of the time, I usually said hi, and he would say hi back.

Yesterday I was at a table outside, after the library closed, and I was biding my time until the bus came. Here comes strong, tall, and handsome. He drops his bag in the chair across from me, and a jug of water on the table, smiles, and says, “Let’s have a conversation!”

Let me tell you people, I’ve been homeless for a bit over a month. I’m finally going to be able to leave Crapsville for something I think is bigger and better. Every man who I had more than a ten word conversation with has catcalled me and pinched and rubbed and hugged me without my permission, and two of them have solicited me for sex in the most awkward ways imaginable. One persistent fellow is dumb as FUCK and always telling me ‘advice’ that I did NOT ask for. (Is this the mansplaining that people talk about? Because nearly every man I talk to does this- like, I don’t need your help unless I ask for it, you know?)

So when a handsome man gives you space and gets right to the point, but not to that point, I get interested.

And I listened to his conversation. Note. Listened.

After five minutes.

After fifteen.

My bus nearly here.

DUDE WAS A FUCKING LUNATIC.

And I was sooooooooooo disappointed. Like, I knew he was getting his education, staying fit, knew how to talk to people  (or thought really) but noooooooooooooooo- he was CRAZY.

And what made me sad sad sad in the pit of my stomach, in my freaking soul, was that he just didn’t know.

He couldn’t see it.

Okay, a snippet of his ‘conversation’:

“You don’t need to be scared of me, there’s nothing to be afraid of, if I was going to kill you I would have pulled out the gun I have, to protect myself, because everyone has a right to protect themselves, especially black men, you see how everyone’s killing black men, espeically cops, don’t trust the cops, they’ll kill you, they kill so many people and people trust them, i know you trust them because you’re looking at your phone, going to call them? I’m not going to hurt you, I just want to teach you, because learning is what you’re here to do, knowledge is power, don’t let anyone tell you different, even  if you’re a woman, there’s that  psychological-methological-pathological influence working on you, too easy, you’re getting distracted, looking at your phone, you know phones cause cancer, and so does that drink and all that sugar, you’ll lose your teeth, see, look, this is how my teeth look and they look like this because I take care of myself, and black men need to take care of themselves, remember what I said about my gun, yea, just turning it all back on itself, circle of life, that psychological-methological-pathological thinking that everyone is thinking, too easy…”

I was only too happy to finally walk to the bus, because it will be near a street and I’ll be safer. I had my brother a button away on my phone (the reason I was on my phone, just in case I antagonize him further). But then Malcom X 0.5 says he’ll walk me home, and I kept telling him I’m taking the bus (because the bus doesn’t run on Sundays, and I had to walk all day today), and he told me (in his rambling way) that I needed to lose weight and a bunch of other crazy stuff. And I was a black woman and he would protect me. To be honest, I actually believed that part 100%.

He said in different ways that if he wanted to hurt/kill me, how he would do it, where he would do it etc.

But one part I want to take from this, other than the fact that, damn, judging a book by its cover goes in so many directions, but also, this dude talked about the psychological-methological-pathological control that his medicine tried to hold over him.

I knew he needed some psychiatric medicine. Probably a lot. All of it. But to know that he’s been off? See this- people have seen this guy being crazy, gave him medicine, and somehow he felt that he didn’t need to take it, and then he felt it wasn’t going to make him better, and finally to Crazyville thinking that the medicine did more harm than good. And now he was how he was.

Brock Turner.

Okay. You’ve heard about him. Prolly read the letters from his parents. If you haven’t read his parents’ letters, here are some excerpts.

This probably makes you irate. Hell, it should. But one thing that prolly works through your mind is if these people are serious. How entitled and self-centered can you get? It’s just almost unbelievable. How crazy can you get?

As yesterday told me, fucking insane. Nutzoid. But what’s the middle for that? Me who takes 600 mg of a pretty strong drug? But people think I’m pretty awesome then how about the Turner’s? The way these people are talking , and you know, they just don’t get the point. And how would you make them know? When every angle is covered by crazy and self-centeredness and complete ignorance? When they see Turner (or when he sees himself) as mostly innocent with a few mistakes (and still continue to be so) can you change their mind?

And that brings me to Orlando. And other killers (mass or otherwise). 90 percent of time, they know that what they’re doing is wrong (or seen as wrong by others), but the little chemicals conjoined in the brain makes someone pull that trigger. Sometimes those chemicals are helped by some religious upbringing and influences imagine endorphins flooding in knowing that what you did, and the scale of what you did, has pleased the god as you know it, and you’re going to heaven. IMAGINE IT.  Of course the chemicals that resulted now to have you think the way you do will force you to think- I can’t kill, that’s not god’s way, that’s not my religion, even if god did say so, that’s not good, that would make me a bad human.

But what if someone didn’t have those chemicals. What if they needed pills or real experience to understand? How would you give someone a real experience?

And that’s just the mental aspect. Homophobia. Racism. Extremism (in any sense). What are we going to do? What can we do?

Bible, Day 10, and He’s really doing Job wrong

Job 19:1-21:34

Summary: More blathering from Zophar, but Job makes some good good points later on in this section. And I mean good from an atheist’s point of view.

19:3 – “a rebuke that dishonors me” – oh poor thing and your honor

19:13-20  – Holy shit, I’m just now realizing that Job’s community is treating him badly. Everyone’s treating him like shit. So his servants all die and all his farming is destroyed, then his kids are killed, and then he gets leprosy. On top of it all, everyone thinks he’s evil or has lost God’s favor and should be punished by everyone else as well as God. Awesome.

20:3 – Dishonor! Dishonor on you! Dishonor on your cow!

:19 – Oh look, the oppression of the poor is bad enough to give people who do it the name of evildoers who will earn God’s wrath. And yet in America we have one of the most religious populations in the developed world, and also the greatest pushback on helping the poor- and I mean REALLY helping the poor, not just dropping a few coins in the red bucket come Christmas, or even giving money to the church, unless your church has a hardworking charity aspect. Let’s look more closely at “seized houses he did not build”. I don’t know if you know this, but you can’t build houses – cardboard or not – just willy nilly, and so people can come take it, or call the police to do so. If you need somewhere to sleep, you better find a bridge, you fucking homeless fucker!

:29 – Such is the fate? Not all the time! Hell, not even most of the time. Where is Zophar getting his history lessons?

21:7  – Yes. Why do they? Seriously?

:19 – “It is said ‘God stores up man’s punishment for his sons.’ Let him repay the man himself, so that he will know it!

 

A Day 10, and Bible class, and poor gorilla (I guess), and ridiculously high standards for life

I don’t really know if I’m tired of something until I have it before me in neat little letters, and I get angry. When I’m bored, I get upset, some deep rage wells up inside me and my mind is pummeled with thoughts like how there are better, newer, more awesome things to do. Or even, there are older, funner, more entertaining things to do, but here I am in this quicksand of a number. Fortunately, reading the Bible isn’t one of the adulting things that I’m more or less forced to do, and so I took (and continue to take) a break, and then I came back to the good book and found myself slowly getting annoyed. (that’s why it’s a continuation) So, let’s get with some interesting things: the new main picture up there.

Whenever I see a class about the Bible I see this :

Especially in the middle of Crapsville Tennessee (aw, that’s not nice, but this is not a place for people who want a fast, constantly changing life- granted, most places aren’t!)

But this little snippet for a Bible class makes the worry fly away  as it makes sure to point out the class would not consider the Bible as some sort of spiritiual guide, but a collection of books. Repetitive books with an interesting way of saying things- that gets old face if nothing is happening and there aren’t any clever wisecracks every so often (like in Shakespeare, you know?).

Another thing to point out is that this class will examine the good book as it has been passed down through the oral tradition and I find to be of grave importance. Many stories written today have been passed down orally, the most famous of them being Grimm’s fairy tales or Greek myths, and the singular case of Beowulf. Countless others that haven’t made it to the mainstream are just as fictional, and just as orally shared as the books of the Bible, and yet the Bible is seen is true. I’m so confused on how this happened really. Egyptian and Greek myths have been phased out so how has the Bible (and others) been able to stay?

Before listening to my reasoning, you might want to research a bit for yourself, but I always think about all the great wars and all the killing of myriads of people and you can see why some religions have stayed longer than others. When you’re about to be killed, that half thought oral tradition may not seem so important. And when you’re doing the killing (and the subsequent convincing) you might let it get to your head that it’s your god speaking, and not just your sword.

I would love to see how the Bible has influenced so much writing. Reading the English Romantic’s poems can be a chore if you’re not familiar with Christian myth, as well as Greek and, rarely, Egyptian. This class is an English major’s opportunity’s for great credit and good learning.

Okay, beautiful gorilla, so sad it died… Well, I’m never really sad when an animal dies, especially an animal I never knew about, unless there was suffering. But I can see how it would upset many people. And I’m just going to bypass Mrs. Gregg’s thanking of God who helped the proper authorities kill the animal (instead of god catching the kid or speaking in his ear not to jump or whatever) and get to the point that is getting me from the reactions of some people.

I’m homeless at the moment and profoundly bored and alone, and while people can get kind of annoying (what is it with people repeating themselves? Over and over and over again? Yes, I got it, you said fuck you to your manager, awesome. Great! You work 12 hours a day and it sucks, gotcha. Yes, I heard you the first three times you said that he wants to marry you- PLEASE ZEUS MAKE IT STOP) kids tend to hold  my attention, because, I suppose, my brain knows they don’t know any better and so their repetition is seen as super cute. And they have small attention spans, so I know the topic will change eventually.

So I go to the free food event and we get to talking about the kid and the gorilla. None of them really care about the gorilla, HOWEVER, they think the family (especially the mom, because apparently it is understood the dad isn’t there? Because the kid is black? Or maybe moms are the only one to be watching the children?) should pay for the damage done (i.e. the cost of a gorilla). First of all, that big guy was about  the worth of a okay-driving car, and you want to put that on top of the heart attack the family involved probably felt after seeing the kid fall, first of all, and then the extreme uncertainty when Boo-boo got a hold of him. Awesome.

But what REALLY upset me was that all the people with kids at the free food event lost track of their kids. Constantly. And all day everyday as I traipse Clarksville, I hear mothers and fathers and guardians calling on their little ones to come back to the three foot radius from the main adult. And anyone who says that the parents should have been looking after the kid, well NO FUCKING SHIT. You think they don’t know that? You think they make it a habit of just forgetting their kids and letting them walk on their own? You don’t think it was just a mistake? It wasn’t until you signed that petition to ruin their lives that they realized, that, oh, Lord! They never watch their kids!

Get the fuck outta here. Yes, a poor animal died, because you don’t want to leave it to chance that the animal would or wouldn’t attack, and the many times a guardian loses track of a kid for two-point-two seconds leads to the kid falling into an enclosure for the animals natural habitat so they can do gorilla things  (I’m hearing that a lot too, should have let the animal do what it does and he prolly wouldn’t do anything? As soon as he bashes a kids brains out, what sort of song would you be singing then?)

Okay, as a homeless person and a person with a disability, and people see me looking generally not as happy as others, the platitudes that seem to rest on everyone’s breasts seem ready to be quickly shared. Because that’s what people do I guess.

One of the platitudes that are driving me fucking bonkers is “Well, at least you have a job”. I put this in le google d’image, and while most of the pictures are saying you should be grateful for the life you have and the job you got, this one was in the top three, and for good reason.

Okay, “at least you have a job”, “at least you’re alive”, “at least you have a place to sleep”. I know many people like to use the useless fact that we take things for granted  against people who are trying to do better for themselves, but I’m not one of those people. Sure, I’m happy I have a job and that I’m alive and I have a place to sleep, but that doesn’t mean I should be happy about not having a place to stay during the day, not enjoying my job even a little bit (especially when I used to, a lot), or that I don’t feel my life is really worth living. I have high standards for life: I want a place to stay during the day. I enjoy cooking some of my own food and not being at the complete mercy of someone else to feed me, especially in the morning, for, at the place I’m staying, you’re not allowed to keep food, and they wonder why people break the rules when come morning there’s Chinese food. HEY, AT LEAST YOU HAVE FOOD TO EAT.

Great, and heartburn. All goddamn day.

I mean, shit, sorry for standards. I mean, damn, you can ask a lot of people who know or have known me personally- I don’t really have high standards. But I know my fucking limits. Working eight hours and my break falls entirely on the fact that my manager remembers I need a break. I can’t leave until someone comes in after me- and they say to me, hey, at least you got some extra hours on my paycheck.

I know my shitty pros and cons, okay? I’m 25 years old. I know I don’t know everything, but I’m the most knowledgeable about myself. And anyone who doesn’t know exactly how I think and feel, or how I’ve thought and felt, don’t get to say how much I can take. I’ve had a lifetime before meeting people, so cool it.

OMG, on Thursday, I told a customer, I’m fine (and I really thought I said it in a cheerful way! I need to hear my voice recorded…) and she was like, ‘Oh, bad day?’ Me: *laughlaughlaugh* More like a bad month *laughlaughlaugh*

Her: Well, it’ll get better, don’t let the little things weigh you down.

Little things like a vandalism charge that really shouldn’t exist, being stuck in the deadest city in Tennessee, and being homeless?

But things would get better. At least by June 27th.

June fucking 27th.

Bible Babble! Day 5!

Job 1:1-3:26

I’ve heard the stories but I don’t think I’ve ever read this in detail. I.e. Something completely new!

1:22 (and similar verses)  – “In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.” Okay, everyone, everyone, let’s say I gave someone the money and the means to kill your whole family, make you sick, and take all  you had. I would be one evil motherfucker, wouldn’t it? Of course this book is all about suffering like Mother Teresa  (or at least her followers), and still loving God because God likes his followers to suffer and still kiss his ass. How does this seem like a good story in the beginning? I do, however, like this verse, 10, “Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?”

Here, I see it may mean that God is responsible for the good and the bad? Omnibenevolence indeed.

Also, 2:1 (and similar verses, because the Bible likes to repeat itself- oral recitation and all that) – “On another day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them to present themselves.” Satan rolling with him homies to talk to God? And Satan likes to fuck with God and have him do bets? How long does this last?

2:1-2, esp. “And he still maintains his integrity, though you incited me against him to ruin him without any reason.” Oh, so it’s all Satan’s fault? You couldn’t put the poor dear through a nightmare where none of this ACTUALLY happens? Or may it happens and loses his memories? Like, how do the children feel being used as pawns like this? This is some bullshit.

3 – Yea, this is what happens when people are put to the end of their rope. I’m wondering what the replies are, for I’m sure it’ll be some good stuff (this is not sarcasm, I really do believe that!)

1. Plot 3-  Very interesting. I’m actually looking forward to the next day. I hope there is some good advice to come!
2. Credibility 3- Yea, this is believable- well, not all those messengers at the same time or anything (that’s what makes it fake as hell) but if things were that bad, repeatedly? Yes I could see it.
3. Reliability 5– I bet you can rely on this chapter and the rest of Job to see how you can use your made up religion to get through your life’s problems
4. Clarity 5- I wish it wasn’t written like some epic poem. It’s hard for me to take it seriously, or to just look for where the figurative language is hiding.
5. Reality 4 – Pretty sure this is a common part to go to for Christians for help through tough times. I’m not sure though.

The Bible – Day 1 (part 1)

GENESIS 1:1-3:24

I’ve been meaning to do this for years, but now I’ve gotten a really good Bible that puts the entire thing in chronological order (or as chronological as it can get with fiction pushed in). It’s called The One Year Chronological Bible, based on the NIV (or New International Version). I’mma try to be as unbiased as I can, but I find the writing to be really boring- but I do find the ‘plot’ to be very interesting!

Based on how I’m feeling and what I’m reading determines what I write. I’ll have the very verses down and we talk about he footnotes and whatnot. This will be a very fun adventure that will be a perfect intellectual sidepiece to my new Tumblr account named BlackBitterMelon, or BitterBlackMelon. You might be wondering what’s up with the bitter melon. One day I will share, but today is not the day! Just no I just complain about things on BBM

1:1– Ah. The beginning

1: “God saw that the light was good” (etc.). So God’s a all-knowing guy right? So did he see his creations as good beforehand or just after he made them? And why is he doing things by day, can’t he just spark things into existence? Why are things separated by day and night anyway- He doesn’t make the sky or stars until the fourth day??? Maybe the earth was turning, so, in a sense, days were happening? But if earth was “formless and empty” that is not true, correct?

“Darkness was over the surface of the deep”… Deep what? There’s nothing there.

1:14– What are these lights versus the stars in Verse 16?? Are we talking about them light thingies we can only see at the poles?

1:26– Who’s “our”? And I find it quite fortunate that God made us humans to “rule over”. Aren’t we just special!

1:30– “‘I give every green plant for food.’ And it was so.” (etc.) Um???? We can’t eat all seed-bearing, beasts, birds, creature on the grounds, green plants though???

Okay, this is what these funbits are going to be like. I totally understand that I might not understand everything that I’m reading, and I’m interested in other interpretations of what is going on. I especially interested in Biblical academics concerning the meaning of words and phrases (what does darkness over the deep even mean????)

What if God(s) wasn’t omniscient? Omnipotent? Omnibenevolent?!

When making up their religions, I always was confused at how so many people didn’t think things through. What were so many people’s hang-ups with making up a god that was all-good, all-powerful, and all-knowing?

Of course, the making up of religions was to make it believable, or at least hard to disbelieve. How easy is it to believe when you’re aware of the possibility of the alternative: eternity in hell? And really that’s the first step, that’s all it takes- I might get some horrible consequence to this belief. Or, on the flip side, why deny an eternity of everlasting peace? That sounds pretty awesome, so why not jump on that gold-covered bandwagon? If this god is so good, why pass this up?

But still, you can make up a pretty believable god without all the fantastical wrappings- I find the Hindu, Greek, and Shinto gods to all be much more believable than a single omniscient, omnibenelovent, omnipotent being. These gods are fickle but powerful, and do shit for themselves and against each other, and they might indulge in a human or civilization just for shits and giggles. They have no plan, just living life and enjoying being worshiped by whoever is around. That makes more sense with the amount of ‘evil’ in this world, or natural disasters, or how nonbelievers are treated or non-knowing-persons are treated. Nothing really bad, as long as you’re not too awful. If any god or gods existed, a group of powerful beings amusing their own fancies would match the world we see on a daily basis.

BUT NO- the most popular gods in existence are a few so-called omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omniscient gods, working singularly for the betterment of all mankind (and among them, gods that are doing this with an Apocalypse in the horizon which entails a point where the human race is -mostly?- beyond help, so what was that god’s purpose until then?).

My hangup is this: you can’t have an all-powerful-good-knowing god. I would say you can’t even have two of the three, and if there is only one left, omnibenevolent is NOT it. Omnibenevolent are those peeps who would rather have themselves killed before harming another being, directly or indirectly.  There ain’t a lot of them (prolly ’cause they don’t live long ahhahahahah- I’m terrible, I know). There were motherfuckers that lit themselves on fire in protest. Humans have this tendency to commit suicide if we feel that we’re too much of a burden. That’s benevolence.

If a popular god had even eighth of the power its believers say it has, and knows at a singular point in time that a baby was going to suffocate in its blanket, and was omnibenelovent- that baby would live. But NOPE, there’s multiple ads in the Health Department  on how to make sure your baby doesn’t die by accident- and shit, there’s still SIDS, because no omnibenelovent god(s) exist to protect your baby. (And please don’t give me that shit about how this baby’s survival was god’s little miracle and this SIDS-death baby had nothing to do with the supernatural, or Mama hadn’t said the appropriate amount of prayer to be heard by said god(s))

I can believe in an omnipotent-only god, who doesn’t give a shit, or who doesn’t know very well, and such. I can believe in an omniscient god, who knows, but can’t do anything, or doesn’t care. If an omnibenevolent god doesn’t have the intelligence or power to stop SIDS from capturing the life of a little one, why the fuck should I believe it has some beautiful paradise waiting for me? (hint: I don’t have to believe because there is no such god(dess))

But let’s put all three together, though, and we have a pure impossibility. Like 100 degree Celsius frozen water on Franklin Street. Or 2+2=800. It just can’t be so. Some ingredients in those phrases have to be wrong, or rubbish. Let’s take omni-3 god and ask it to make a burrito so large it can’t eat it. Or shit, make frozen water 100 degrees Celsius on Franklin street. Or hand someone two oranges, and then exactly two more oranges, and have the person with 800 oranges from it giving two, and then two more.

But shit, we don’t have to go into logical forays of the impossible. Omni-3 god exists, then SIDS shouldn’t be a factor, or starving children (I mean EVERYWHERE for ALL TIME-let’s remember there were famines before now because there wasn’t enough water or something), or diseases wiping out civilizations (because very few people do that shit on purpose, because so many people just didn’t fuckin’ know).  Unless omnibenevolent is something else when it comes to a god? All’s-well-that-ends-well? Except for the Antichrist coming and the Apocalypse in some cases? That somehow in gods(‘) mysterious way everything is good somehow?

Let’s take for example SIDS-dead-baby. The death of that baby is somehow good… And the allowance of Hitler to survive WWI and became the almost comically-evil antagonist instigator of WWII was good… We can’t see it because god is god. But if god was omnibenevolent, why would he let so many people suffer? Why make that stupid tree? Why such harsh punishments for something I wouldn’t even spank a child over? Why have the Antichrist and the End-of-the-World? Eternal suffering? Or even with all this, why do believers still have to suffer grief?

Why have humans grieve over something so amazingly great as dying and going to heaven? And there’s absolutely no way to help that shit- sure, original sin perhaps and our faulty bodies, but isn’t it hard to keep up a faith when people are dying all around you and you can’t keep yourself from crying and being depressed and perhaps, finally, committing suicide (which is a sin in most religions! What the fuck!). Personally, if I was a Christian, I would put it through my head that, hey, I’ll see them about sixty or so years, so it’s all good. Or I can pretend to talk to them (or actually talk to them) just like I do to talk to God- but no, it’s not that easy, even if one believes it is true. Why do believers fear death? When I come across this, I find Islam more believable.

Suicide bombers are the biggest helpers of Islam, in my logical belief. If one believed completely that Allah had heaven awaiting after an honorable death, and this person goes into death via bomb- that shows me that that faith was true, and there are reasons for such a strong faith. Of course, I ultimately reason that these people have brains addled by religion, but on the surface, this is quite convincing, and would even contend this is an omnibenevolent god. Except, suicide bombers kill others who don’t want to be killed and whose families would grieve. So, yea, Allah ain’t omni-3 either.

Omnipotent is kind of confusing. So this god is really really powerful and he/she/it/they/xe uses that power to do enough to make people make a leap of faith into believing them? Don’t give me that bull that god’s power is all around us, because I can give you the point where, sorry, this was human work, animal work, or nature work, or a combination of all three. No goddy required. Could you do a little more? Ok, this or that god supposedly did a lot way back when, lotta magic and miracles, and that didn’t have people flocking to them (because gods don’t exist), but having absolutely no magical fairy dust sprinkled prominently here and there? Especially in this age of technology? It makes sense if the god wasn’t omnibenevolent, and doesn’t try, but with that, it should know magic stuff would still work. But it doesn’t, because it doesn’t exist.

So in this omni-3 way, knowing many persons will find them unbelievable, powerful enough to change their minds, and wanting them all to come to heaven to live long happy lives- and yet 4500 mysterious baby deaths will happen a year. Unbelievable.